Chennai to host 98th Indian Science Congress
Reports Vinod Varshney

K C Pande

New Delhi. S.R.M. University of Chennai will host the 98th Indian Science Congress next year. This was decided Saturday evening in Trivandrum by the Council of the Indian Science Congress Association.
SRM University is a private technical university, celebrating its silver jubilee this year. It claims outstanding laboratories and infrastructure.
Osmania University of Hyderabad was a close contender for the chance to host it followed by institutes of Kolkata and Nanded.

Chennai gets this honour the Seventh Time

Chennai, the capital city of Tamilnadu would be getting the honour to host this reputed science meet the seventh time. Though Kolkata has the record of hosting the largest number of Science Congresses, ten times out of 97 so far.
The last one in Chennai was held in 1999 when Dr Manju Sharma was the General President and inaugurated by Atal Behari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minster.
Chennai had traditionally been considered the second science capital of India, the first one being Calcutta. Though Calcutta now has been replaced by Bangalore.
It may be recalled the 1st Indian Science Congress was held in Kolkata 1914 and the 2nd next year in Chennai, then called Madras. Chennai had also the distinction of having organised the Science Congress in 1929 with the only Indian Nobel Laureate Sir C.V. Raman being its General President.
Prof K. C. Pande Will be the Chennai Congress Hero

The next year Chennai would be hosting the Science Congress with Prof K C Pande as the General President. This is a departure from the tradition of electing some scientist from the government establishment as the General President.
Prof Pande is purely an academician who had been Vice Chancellor of Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut. Since the focal theme of next year’s Science Congress is going to be related to Science Teaching and Quality Research in Universities, his choice as the General President seems quite appropriate.
However the theme has yet to be fine-tuned in the next Council meeting of Indian Science Congress Association within a week, said Dr G Madhavan Nair, the General President of the 97th Congress.